Sea Grant podcast series spotlights, produced by Nelson researchers

October 1, 2013

An iPhone application developed by Nelson Institute researchers is featured in a new podcast series produced by the University of Wisconsin Sea Grant Institute, “Sea Grant and Lake Michigan, Waters in Transition.”

The geotool smart phone application, funded by Sea Grant, is designed to foster citizen engagement in the Green Bay area, allowing residents to more deeply understand and interact with Lake Michigan.

Through the app, communities can write or build their own spatial narrative – a story of place – by recording photos, audio, video and journal entries to be uploaded to a community map. The concept was prototyped with Esri, a leading geographic information systems (GIS) software maker.

The app is developed by Janet Silbernagel, a professor of environmental studies and landscape architecture, and Nelson Institute graduate students Francis Eanes, Environment and Resources, who speaks about the app in the podcast, and Max Axler, Conservation Biology and Sustainable Development.

The 10-part podcast series was produced by Chris Bocast, an alumnus of Environment and Resources (Ph.D., ’13) and an audio specialist with the Wisconsin Sea Grant College Program. The podcasts, structured as a travelogue, take listeners from Lake Michigan’s northern end in Door County all the way to UW-Milwaukee’s School of Freshwater Sciences in the south.

“I wanted to share a firsthand experience of visiting Lake Michigan and speaking with the researchers who are trying to answer some of the many questions about what is happening with the lake,” says Bocast.

Bocast composed and performed the theme music and filled the series with intriguing location audio recorded on the shores of Lake Michigan. The episodes range between 10 and 20 minutes each and are available for free and downloadable.